Jet Lag
by AliceUnknown
Summary: It started when Maka forced him into the middle seat.


A/N: I've got a three hour flight ahead of me and only 75% battery. Let's see what I can accomplish. :3

Jet Lag

by AliceUnknown

_5:03 p.m._

Soul hated flights. And this one would be no exception.

_She_ was the one who wanted to visit her mother for the holidays. The flight from Death City International Airport to MIA was four and a half hours, non-stop, packed with loud children, roaring engines, and germs. Maka, however, was bubbly at the very sound of her mother's voice from across the telephone, inviting her to spend Christmas with her (for the first time since the divorce). Maka's ecstasy won over Soul's protests easily.

Death City International Airport, or DCIA, was actually, at one point in time, quite a hot airport in Arizona, but ever since 911, any airport with the title "Death" in it plummeted in popularity. Now, the airport was reserved specifically for Shibusen students to use to travel to far-off mission locations. Shinigami-sama had been submissive and allowed students to use it to visit family over holiday breaks.

Soul and Maka walked into the plane, which smelled horribly of feet and sickness, one feeling overjoyed in anticipation and the other...not so much. Boarding time was 5 pm, but the sun was already setting below the rocky horizon, casting hues of reds and oranges over the desert, somehow reminding Soul that it would be midnight when they landed. _(A/N: 4 hour flight+3 hour time difference.)_ It was hot inside the aircraft, but not sticky-hot as it would be once they landed in Florida. The pair moved along the aisle, looking over the heads of students to find two empty seats. They passed by people they were familiar with, but (thankfully) none of their Spartoi comrades. BlackStar and Tsubaki had booked a different flight that left a few days before to visit Tsubaki's parents in Japan, and Kid and the Thompson sisters were staying in Death City for the holidays. Kim and Jackie were flying (not on a plane) to where Jackie had relatives in Phoenix. Harvar, Ox and Kilik were procrastinating on calling up their parents.

The two continued on, occasionally saying hi or knuckle-punching people as they passed. Towards the back was a row of seats, perfectly open and ready to be sat in. Soul made his way for the window seat, glad he'd be able to sit back and have a place to lean his head on while he slept and listened to music-

Soul felt a tug on his sleeve. Turning around, he saw Maka. Staring at him. With the most obvious pout on her face.

Words did not need to be spoken. With an audible groan, Soul moved aside so that Maka could climb in to _his_ window seat, which she did with a dopey smile on her face and without a care for his feelings. After storing their carry-ons overhead, he slumped into the middle seat next to her, resting his elbow on the armrest and grumpily laying his head on his palm. Maka turned to see his frown and sighed, "Don't be such a baby, Soul," as she cracked open her book, turning on the overhead light to read.

This woman.

Soul moaned inwardly and dug through his bag to retrieve his ipod and headphones. As he untangled the headphone's wire, the captain began making the usual run of announcements, reminding the passengers not to use any electronics until they were 10,000 feet up in the air.

Soul looked down at the ipod in his lap.

_Oh._

He continued to untangle the wire anyway, intent on submerging himself in music for the next four hours.

Once Soul finally plugged himself in, the flight attendants came up and displayed the do's and don't's of using a seat belt buckle. He closed his eyes, fully knowledgeable on the mechanics of aircraft safety. No one in the plane was paying attention anyways.

Again, Soul felt a tug on his sleeve. He groaned, aware of the fact that only one person could possibly be tugging at him, then turned his head to see Maka motioning for him to _pay attention_ to the flight attendants. Because he apparently wasn't mentally capable of buckling a goddamn seat belt. Except, oh look at that, he already did buckle it.

_This woman._

For a moment, he considered giving her the bird, but by the time he reached the decision not to, the flight attendants had already finished their display, and Maka had returned to the book in her hands. Well then.

Soul finally had the headphones fully untangled and fumbled with putting the end in his ipod. Sinking back in his seat, he positioned the headphones over his ears and pressed play. His ears were destroyed within moments when ample volumes of music clawed through his eardrums. He was just about tone-deaf when he came to the realization that he had his ipod on full blast the last time he'd used it. Soul scrambled through the lock to hurriedly _turn the volume the hell down_. The low, clear, audible music that pursued was bliss.

Soul saw peripherally that Maka was making a motion to him. He slid the headphones down and asked, "What?"

"Turn it down," she repeated. Before he could respond that _he already did_, she resumed reading her infuriating book.

_**This freakin' woman.**_

_7:32 p.m._

_Low battery: 7%_

Soul muttered at himself for not charging his ipod before a four hour flight. With a sigh, he loosely wrapped his headphone wires up and turned off his dying ipod. He relaxed his head back into the cushioned headrest. It was black outside the window Maka was next to, except for the little patterns of light that represented the towns they passed over. Maka was still reading her book. Though it appeared to be around 300 pages, she was over half-way through it. More out of boredom than genuine interest, Soul inquired, "What's that about?"

"It's just a chick book," she replied, her eyes unwavering from the text. She turned a page.

Soul rolled his eyes at her detachment. He studied her face; her eyes were subtly moving along each word, her eyebrows occasionally twitching up at a line, and her mouth curled at the tips into a faint smile. Almost inaudibly, she giggled, her eyelids drooping over into a dorky, mushy expression at the text.

Yup. Chick book.

Soul closed his eyes, hoping to catch some sleep before they landed. His neck felt awkward. He propped his elbow up on his armrest and laid his head down in an attempt to get more comfortable, but his elbow slipped and scraped a bit, and when he repositioned it, his arm quickly began to lose blood. He tried to lean his head on his shoulder, but no comfort was achieved from that either. He put down the tray table and tried in numerous different ways to find comfort there, but to no success. In the end, he reverted back to laying on the headrest.

_Kick._

Soul jolted up a bit. _What was that?_ he thought.

_Kick kick._

_Oh dear God,_ he pleaded to himself, _please no._

_Kick kick._

Since the time of the origin of airplanes, as it is commonly known, there are always two types of passengers on every aircraft. The first is the sleep-deprived, grumpy passenger, commonly depicted as an older gentleman, who constantly becomes annoyed at every minor irritation- I like to dub such passengers, "the annoyee". The second type is, in contrast to "the annoyee", "the annoyer". I think we all know this type of passenger. It's the kind, generally stereotyped as a younger child, who will make your flight a living hell. A commonly-known method of "the annoyer" is to mercilessly swing their legs on the back of your chair. Sometimes, to the well-fortunate, "the annoyer" will only use this method for several minutes, whereas to the unblessed, they may persist at this for the entire duration of your flight. When these two types of passengers are seated in a such way that "the annoyer" is behind "the annoyee", shit happens.

Soul, like a sleep-deprived old man, is "the annoyee".

Naturally, Soul began to grind his teeth together in fury and dig his nails into the palms of his hands, chanting in his head, _Don't say anything, it'll be over soon, don't say anything, it'll be over soon..._

Unfortunately, such a method would only be useful for all of about two minutes.

After two minutes, Soul felt himself about to explode. He had the unending urge to yank clumps of hair out of his head like a deranged person. He stayed rigidly still as he said, "Maka. Do something. Now."

Maka was not having it. "Deal with it yourself. Not my problem." Page turn.

_Fuuuucccckkkk mmmeeeeeeee_, was really the only thought Soul could generate.

_Kick._

"Okay, that's it!" Soul whipped up until his fastened seat buckle sent his ass flying back down into his seat. He hastily loosened the buckle until he could turn around. "Soul," Maka calmly sighed, "would you just sit down?" Soul ignored her with all of his might as he flashed around, his stomach touching the back of his seat, eyes murderously looking down on his victim. "OKAY, LOOK PAL-!"

"Oh, hey Soul!" an excited voice cheered. "What's up?"

Soul froze, eye twitching. He was met with a scrawny figure with bright green eyes and blonde hair that was messily covering his forehead. "H-Hiro?"

The annoyance by the name of Hiro laughed and waved a hand at him. "What is up my man?" He held up a fist for Soul to pump.

"Uh, Hiro?" Soul began, blatantly ignoring the gesture "C-Can you-"

"Ah, hey!" Hiro interrupted. "Does that mean Maka-chan is there, too?"

"Erm...yes?"

"Cool! Lemme say hi!" Hiro squeaked.

"Um...yeah, sure," Soul replied. He turned back around to retrieve Maka, who's face looked exactly the same even though Soul knew she had overheard the entire conversation. "Oi, Maka," he snickered. "It's Hiro." Her eyebrow twitched, but she did not respond. Soul snorted, "Well, don't be rude." Maka kept her poker face for another few seconds before conceding and shutting her book. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, Soul containing his laughter at his revenge. She barely turned and said, "Hello, Hiro."

Hiro laughed, high pitched and annoying. "Hiiiii Makaaaaaa~!"

Maka paused, then picked her book back up, quietly saying, "Well, I'll let you two carry on then."

Soul protested, "Hey, wait-"

_Kick._

Soul froze.

_Kick kick. Kick kick._

"Hiro?"

"Yeah, buddy?"

Soul didn't have to turn back around to tangibly feel the ":D" emoticon ricocheting off his facial features. His hand clamped subconsciously into a fist.

"Can you maybe possibly **not kick the back of my chair again please?**"

"Huh?" Hiro said, head tilted to the side. He looked down at his feet and seemed to realize that, indeed, he had been kicking he back of Soul's chair all this time. "Whoops! Sorry pal!" He mocked a solute as if Soul were his lieutenant. "Won't happen again!" he winked.

"Cool. Thanks, man," Soul muttered in reply.

"No biggie, friend!"

Somehow, Soul came out of that feeling at least twice as shitty as he felt before.

_Well_, Soul thought to himself,_ maybe now I can finally slee-_

_Kick kick._

"Whoops! My bad, mi amigo!" Hiro called from behind him. "Won't happen again!" he repeated, laughing. His laughter bounced through every centimeter of Soul's ear.

Only Maka's reminder that fighting on an airplane was probably illegal in more than one ways withheld him from turning around and punching the shit out of Hiro.

_11:30 p.m._

The pilot announced that they still has another half an hour of flying left._ (A/N: 5p.m.+3.5 hours=8:30p.m.+3 hour time change=11:30p.m. Since I know someone is going to ask.)_ Soul didn't know if he could make it that long. He swore he had tried every tactic he could think of to fall asleep, but to no avail, as he was still as awake and tired as ever. On the bright side, Hiro has fallen asleep and had stopped with the kicking. On the down side, Soul was now irritated as all things holy.

Maka had fallen asleep reading. The overhead light had been left on, casting shadows over her face. She was smiling. Soul smirked. Her eagerness to see her mother was portrayed through her face even in her sleep. She was such a dork sometimes, he though fondly.

He knew he should probably wake her up now. She hated waking up to her ears still being popped. She was sensitive with that. Maka needed time to un-pop her ears before landing.

_Although,_ Soul thought,_ she would kind of deserve it, since this has pretty much been the worst flight ever thanks to her..._

But the thought of a tired, grumpy Maka with ear-pains scared him just a little bit.

Soul sighed reluctantly and nudged her arm. "Maka, c'mon, wake up." She refused. She moved for a bit, but only shifted before resuming her faint snoring. He groaned. Even in her sleep, she was incredibly stubborn. "Maka," he tried again, keeping his voice low so as to not wake the other passengers. "Wakey-wakey. We're almost the..." He stopped when he realized she was whispering something. Soul got a bit closer to hear her.

"Mama...mama..."

Well, Soul reasoned, he couldn't _possibly_ wake Maka up when she seemed to be having such a good dream. Taking a second look at her, he wasn't even sure he wanted to. She was so innocent now when she was incapable of slamming a book into his head, so cute...

Wait, _what?_

Soul had to physically shake his head to clear it from that thought. His meister? _Cute?_ Ha.

He seriously needed some sleep...

_12:07 a.m._

"Soul, wake up."

His thoughts were fuzzy. His whole _head_ was fuzzy, actually. And his eyes were closed. What had he been doing again?

"Sooouuull. Let's go, our plane's landed, we gotta go see my mom!"

Oh yeah. Sleeping.

Soul blinked his eyes a few times, opening them to reveal an unclear image of his meister, looking out-of-focus. She was poking him gently in the arm to wake him up. Soul felt himself mumble something incoherent.

Ten minutes later, Soul had regained feeling in his legs, and Maka was running into the arms of her mama.

...

A/N: Ending was awkward. Wording was awkward. Timing was awkward. Everything was awkward.

55% battery and another hour left of my flight. Well, I'm going to spend the remaining time playing Pokemon. :D WINTER BREAK, I'M SO PUMPED. GONNA GET MAH FANFICTIONING ON!

**Edit:** I've been getting a lot of less-than-satisfied feedback about the rushed ending. I'm sorry everyone! D: I went back to add more detail, but I ended up falling asleep for the remaining time. By the time I arrived at my Uncle's house, I didn't feel up to revising it, so I apologize, but unfortunately the ending is going to have to stay as is. :( I'm sorry.

OH MY GOD, REVIEW. LIKE, EVEN ONE WORD. PLZ. /:D


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